Thick Headed Fly

Subject: Fly indentification please Location: Illinois, usa March 16, 2014 11:42 am Hello! My name is Shawn from Connecticut. I run an insect page on instagram and am quite careful when identifying insects. This here was sent to me to identify from Illinois. I first thought it was a type of fly or perhaps a mosquito, but I am leaning more towards fly. I’d greatly appreciate your insight. Thank you very much, Shawn. Signature: Shawn Dean (iamshawndean)

Fly on Flower

Dear Shawn, Our first thought was that this must be a Flower Fly in the family Syrphidae, but we were unable to locate a matching image on BugGuide. We will attempt continued research.

Karl identifies a Thick Headed FlyHi Daniel and Shawn: This is a variety of Thick-headed Fly (Conopidae) in the subfamily Stylogastrinae and genus Stylogaster. There are only two species of Sylogaster in the USA, S. neglecta and S. biannulate. Stylogaster neglecta appears to be the closer match and the long ovipositor indicates that it is a female. The female uses this ovipositor to pierce the body of a host orthopteran (cockroach, cricket, grasshopper or katydid) where the deposited egg becomes an endoparasite. Regards. Karl

Oh thank you so so very much Daniel. I greatly appreciate your efforts. I utilize the information on your page all the time and truly appreciate everyone who works so hard to bring us the most accurate information you can. Thank you again, Shawn Dean

We have updated the posting with a correction identifying this as a Thick Headed Fly, Stylogaster neglecta.